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Great news! The 2nd and 3rd Sailor Moon films, Sailor Moon S The Movie and Sailor Moon SuperS The Movie, are coming to theatres in North America this summer. Sailor Moon S The Movie will be shown with an encore presentation of Sailor Moon R The Movie Saturday July 28th and Monday the 30th while Sailor Moon SuperS The Movie will be shown with the Ami’s First Love special Saturday August 4th and Monday the 6th. The Saturday showings will have Viz’s new English dub of the film while the Monday showings will be in Japanese with English subtitles. This was announced earlier today at Viz’s Moon Panel at Anime Central in Rosemont, just outside of Chicago. A trailer has been uploaded to YouTube and can be seen below:

The movie posters for these two movies are similar in style to what we saw when Sailor Moon R The Movie was released in theatres.

Fans will be able to get tickets and a complete list of participating theatres from the Fathom Events web site. Currently no theatres are listed but there will surely be more added as we get closer to the dates. It seems practical to refer to the SuperS film as Sailor Moon SuperS The Movie rather than it’s full official title Sailor Moon SuperS: The Nine Sailor Guardians Unite! Miracle of the Black Dream Hole. I hardly hold this against Viz as I’ve been known to do the same myself! This will be the first time Ami’s First Love is released here in North America. This short animated special, which was originally shown alongside the SuperS film in Japan, tells the story of Ami receiving a love letter which she suspects is from her intellectual rival Mercurius.

Sailor Moon S The Movie is adapted from a manga story The Lover of Princess Kaguya which focuses on Luna and her infatuation with a human man. It is well known for featuring Human Luna.

The Sailor Moon SuperS film is an original story not based on any manga chapter. It has Chibiusa befriending Perle, a sort of fairy boy who’s rebelling against Badiane, a villain who is attempting to put the Earth’s children into an eternal sleep in the Black Dream Hole. The film’s story has some similarities to the film The Matrix, which was made a few years after it, though these may be a simple coincidence.

A few weeks ago we got our first look at the Nogizaka46 x Sailor Moon musical. This new musical will be playing in Tokyo this summer first at the Tennōzu Galaxy Theatre June 8th to the 24th and then at the TBS Akasaka ACT Theater September 21st to the 30th. What, you may ask, is this musical all about? Nogizaka46 is an all female pop band in Japan and this is a Sailor Moon musical featuring members of that band. As we can see from the promo image and the posts on the Sailor Moon official site and musical’s official site, 10 of the band members have formed two Sailor Teams. One is Team Moon and the other is Team Star.

The two teams seem to be identical in costume and appearance, though we can clearly see that the members in those costumes differ from one image to the other. With multiple shows being put on over a fairly short time the two teams are scheduled to perform on different nights. At first I imagined this was to give the other team a break on the off days but since a lot of the other cast of the musicals is only listed once it seems like not everyone is on that schedule. Perhaps this setup is simply meant to vary the performances to feature more of their talent. It remains to be seen if the performances themselves will vary depending on the team performing. Perhaps each team will have an exclusive song to encourage people to see multiple performances! At this point this is only speculation.

Here’s a translated cast listing. I’m not good with Japanese names (since Google Translate messes them up) so I had a little help from this Anime News Network article for this list. I attempted to find a relevant link when possible. All members of Nogizaka46 have profiles from the official site and for others I tried to find a profile or social media link.

Only the main cast of the Sailor Team will be composed of Nogizaka46 members. The rest of cast of characters are played by various musical stars and dancers, as was the case with other musicals. To me the most interesting casting decision here is that Mikako Ishii, who played Sailor Pluto in the last few musicals, will be playing Tuxedo Mask! It’s well established that Sailor Pluto has an unrequited love for King Endymion in the future! What better way to gain someone’s affection than to literally become them? Also returning is Chihiro Ando as Kunzite. She previously played Tiger’s Eye in the Amour Eternal musical. As we see from this an other casting we once again have an all female cast even including the male characters.

It seems clear that the story will cover the Dark Kingdom story arc though beyond that it’s hard to get a sense of what the content or structure of the musical will be like. Given the cast and that we have two returning cast members I’m inclined to think that it will be a similar presentation to musicals we have seen in the past.

So … which Team are you rooting for? Is that how we’re supposed to be reacting to this? Go Team Star! No way Team Moon is the best! … and so forth.

Rika Izumi, who played Sailor Mercury in the live action Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon series, can be seen on the official Sailor Moon site although no mention of her involvement in the franchise accompanies it! Rika Izumi, who went by the name Hama Chisaki when she played Ami Mizuno, appears on the cover of the latest issue of Tokyo Calendar. The fact that the magazine’s cover model used to be on a Sailor Moon series actually has nothing to do with the magazine’s inclusion on the site. It is featured because of a story in its pages which discusses Sailor Moon taking place in the Azuba Juban area of Tokyo. Though the site only mentions that the article will be appearing in the next issue of the magazine the Tokyo Calendar site actually includes an online version of the article. Check it out to see an interview, in Japanese, with Sailor Moon’s editor Fumio Osano, Osabu, about Sailor Moon taking place in Azuba Juban.

You can also check out this article on dining in Azuba Juban which features Rika Izumi who is in this piece a normal Japanese adult and not dressed as a superhero or genius school girl.

I sometimes feel like the fantastic live action series is being completely forgotten by those who control the Sailor Moon property! It often receives little or no mention when various versions of the series are considered and this latest article is a fine example of that! Rather than acknowledge that this actress who had a major role in the only Sailor Moon series to be on TV during that entire decade the live action series remains firmly swept under the carpet like it was the Star Wars Holiday Special!

Meanwhile the cast of the series got together recently to celebrate Daigo’s 40th birthday. Daigo is Keiko Kitagawa’s husband. They regularly get together to celebrate each other’s birthdays or similar such events. I’m glad someone remembers this series favourably!

Sailor Moon SuperS Part 1 will be out on DVD and Blu-Ray on April 24th. Those looking to pre-order it should be careful to get the right version. I often get these from Amazon however the Special Edition is hard to find on the site. The Amazon listing for the product only includes the DVD and Regular Edition Blu-Ray but there is a separate page with no box art which has the Special Edition Blu-Ray. This includes a box to house both volumes and a special booklet. The set can also be pre-ordered from Right Stuf. They have Special Edition Blu-Ray, Standard Edition Blu-Ray and DVD copies listed on their site.

As is often the case with such a release Viz has given us a sneak peak at a lot of the voices in the form of some videos. These ones were posted to the Viz Media Twitter account as well as their YouTube channel. This includes a full trailer showing various characters and a couple of clips of the Amazon Trio. You can watch them embedded below:

We also recently got cast information about Sailor Moon SuperS Part 2! Long ago we learned about the actors appearing in Part 1 but it wasn’t until a couple of weeks ago at Anime Boston that we finally got an announcement of who would be voicing Queen Nehelenia (now spelled Nehalennia) and the Amazoness Quartet. This was confirmed on Twitter. The Amazon Quartet take the place of the Amazon Trio as the season’s villains once their story arc is completed. The cast includes Laura Post as Queen Nehalennia, Erica Lindbeck as Ves-Ves, Xanthe Huynh as Palla-Palla, Erika Ishii as Jun-Jun and Cassandra Lee Morris as Cere-Cere. Cassandra Lee Morris previously voiced Calaveras of the Ayakashi Sisters in Sailor Moon R.

The Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon The 25th Anniversary Memorial Tribute Album CD was released in Japan on April 4th. I picked up my copy from Amazon Japan which meant that I got the Amazon Japan exclusive sticker featuring Usagi and Chibiusa. Having had a chance to listen to the album a couple of times I thought I would share my thoughts on it. Overall it’s enjoyable to hear these iconic tracks with a bit of a twist. All considered I much preferred the 20th Anniversary Memorial Tribute album released about 5 years ago as it had a bit more variety and a lot of the songs on this album are just a rehash of those. Some of the tracks are pretty good but I wouldn’t say any of them are superior to their originals for all that’s worth.

Moonlight Densetsu performed by LiSA is decent. We’ve seen this song redone so many times though and this is hardly the best we’ve seen! It’s a more upbeat version and a more significant departure from the original than the other one we have on this album.

La Soldier by Gesshoku Kaigi is one of the better tracks. La Soldier, although featured in the final real episode of Sailor Moon R, is a musical song. It’s actually the only musical song on this album and was also the only musical song on the last Tribute Album. It’s a great song and it certainly would have been nice to see more covers of musical songs.

Moon Revenge by BiSH is terrible! I’m all for switching things up but this one is a bit too much! It’s starts out fast and gets faster until it’s pretty much a joke at which point there’s a bunch of screaming. What a farce! We got a cover of Moon Revenge, which is from Sailor Moon R The Movie, by Momoiro Clover Z a few years ago. It would have been nice to get a cover of another movie song instead or in addition to this.

Otome No Policy is Otome No pointless. What a waste of time! Yoko Ishida returns to do a “cover” of this ending theme from Sailor Moon R. It’s pretty much the same as the version she recorded 25 years ago. Further she performed it just recently at the Classic Concert. What is the point of this? It’s a tribute album! You don’t just get the same artist to do the same song in the same style. What is this, Evangelion 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone?

Kakumei wa Night & Day or Revolution is Night & Day by Etsuko Yakushimaru is finally something a bit new. Here’s a song we didn’t see on the last Tribute Album for a change! This is from Sailor Moon Crystal, sort of it. It’s a character song which originally featured the entire cast. While it’s certainly nice to hear something a bit different this really isn’t a song I had much affection for. The Sailor Moon Character Song CD was released in April 2015 but didn’t actually include any music from the series but instead songs performed by the cast. Character songs are common for Sailor Moon series. The original anime and live action series had many such songs released on CDs and singles, some of which actually appeared on the shows. This makes me wonder why this was chosen for inclusion instead of some perhaps more memorable character songs from the past? I would have enjoyed a duet of You’re Just My Love covered by a pair of popular artists. Regardless I do appreciate the attempt at something different on this album that is so much a rehash of songs we hear time and time again … and again.

“Rashiku” Ikimashou or I’ll Go As Myself, performed by Sonoko Inoue, is a fairly enjoyable track. This ending theme for Sailor Moon SuperS which was also included at the end of the Ami’s First Love special is a fun pop upbeat pop song which lends itself well to being covered by a new artist! This version is a bit different which is always good. Isn’t that the point?

Kaze mo Sora mo Kitto or The Wind, the Sky, Surely, is the second track performed by Gesshoku Kaigi. This was originally the ending theme for Sailor Stars. This is a decent track which departs a bit from the original but doesn’t surpass it in quality.

The Sailor Stars Song is performed by Silent Siren. This is a great opening theme so it’s kind of hard to do a bad job of it. Silent Siren’s cover is enjoyable.

Eternal Eternity is performed by Ziyou-Vachi. This is the first ending theme for the third season of Sailor Moon Crystal which originally featured Sailor Uranus and Neptune and was performed by their voice actors. Upon hearing this song I immediately recognized Avu-chan, who provides the Sailor Uranus part of the vocals on this song. Avu-chan was half of the duet which performed Ai No Senshi on the first Tribute Album. Since her performance was not as a member of Ziyou-Vachi on that album I did not originally spot that this was yet another artist who was returning for this album. Having a transgender woman to provide the voice of Sailor Uranus is a bit odd to me. Haruka is a woman with masculine tendencies. To have her voice performed by a transgender woman who herself identifies with femininity seems potentially insensitive. That said I don’t know much about this particular artist. Perhaps this is a character that she somehow identifies with so without specifics I can’t really pass judgement.

Finally we have two bonus tracks which are both performed by voice actors from Sailor Moon Crystal. This being the voices of Sailor Moon, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Venus. They perform Moonlight Densetsu or Moonlight Legend, the Sailor Moon anime opening theme, and Tuxedo Mirage, the Sailor Moon S ending theme. While this is an interesting choice for performers the songs are pretty much like the ones we’ve already heard. Tuxedo Mirage in particular is almost indistinguishable from the original. Not too impressive but as so called bonus tracks I feel like it’s better than nothing.

Ultimately a limiting factor in my enjoyment of this album may simply be that I’m unfamiliar with many of these artists. If I were a Japanese music fan living in Japan and familiar with some or all of these bands I might be excited to hear them perform some of these songs which I enjoy so much but I really come at this only as a Sailor Moon fan who has no real investment in these artists. Still there were tracks on the first Tribute Album that really blew me away. When I heard Tommy heavenly6’s La Soldier I was so impressed with it that I sought out and listened to a number of her albums. This album didn’t encourage me to do anything similar with any of the artists involved.

As packaging goes this one is nothing too extraordinary. The cover is a bit disappointing as it’s just recycled art from the recently released Sailor Moon 20th Anniversary Book.

The CD is pretty neat with a sort of rotational symmetry which may frustrate you if you’re trying to orient it correctly. I decided to try to line mine up straight with the hard to make out Compact Disc logo.

The included booklet which includes 20 pages is quite nice. With so many CDs these days having little to no insert it’s nice to see a few pages of art and full lyrics for all songs as we see here. I’ve included photos of all pages of this booklet at the end of the post.

I also got a special sticker for having pre-ordered this from Amazon Japan. There are a number of different stickers which are included depending on where you got the album. These were all cover art from the Sailor Moon manga. The sticker I got featured Usagi and Chibiusa with the other Sailor Guardians in the background.

Do I recommend this? My feelings on it are pretty lukewarm. If it wasn’t evident I much preferred the 20th Anniversary Tribute album. Still there are a few enjoyable tracks that a fan might appreciate. It may not be worth the effort to import but should it become available to download from a digital service like iTunes down the line that would be a justifiable purchase. There is also, of course, the option of acquiring it less than legally. I will always encourage supporting the show though there are certainly no shortage of options for doing so with the way Sailor Moon is monetized these days. I won’t facilitate sharing such things on this site but ultimately I leave that kind of decision to you!

Keep reading for more images of the box art and all pages of the included booklet.

The Sailor Moon The 25th Anniversary Tribute Album will be released later this week, on April 4th, but you can now see a video previewing of all tracks on the Sailor Moon official site. I had previously posted a translation of all tracks on this album. We have now also learned of two bonus tracks which will be included. These are Moonlight Densetsu (Moonlight Legend), the original Sailor Moon anime opening theme, as well as Tuxedo Mirage, the ending theme to Sailor Moon S. Both of these tracks will be performed by the cast of Sailor Moon Crystal. That being Kotono Mitsuishi, Sailor Moon, Hisako Kanemoto, Sailor Mercury, Rina Sato, Sailor Mars, Ami Koshimizu, Sailor Jupiter, and Shizuka Ito, Sailor Venus. It sure is nice to see that they still have the contact information of the Sailor Moon Crystal cast, what with it having been so long since they’ve recorded any episodes of the show.

Check out the video below.

What do you think? I’ve got a few thoughts already! I don’t like Moon Revenge at all. I’m all for doing a cover in a different style but this fast pace just doesn’t fit the song to me. I’m pretty disappointed with Otome No Policy being so similar to the original version. Why get the original artist back to sing the same song in the exact same way especially after we just got a fairly similar version from the Classic Concert? Hearing Moonlight Densetsu with the new cast is pretty neat, though this song is generally done to death. We had originally gotten a “Pretty Cast” version of this song from the original anime. Pretty Cast was a name for a group composed of the five voice actors voicing the original Sailor Guardians. As they were also the original voices for Moon Revenge I would have preferred to see them do the vocals for this song as a bonus and perhaps give something more fitting to BiSH.

Any favourite tracks out of these? Are you picking up this album this week?

Sailor Moon The 25th Anniversary Memorial Tribute Album will be released on April 4th. You can pre-order it from sites like Amazon Japan. The Sailor Moon Official Site has posted a track listing for the album which shows us what will be included and what artists will be performing them. It also includes the album cover which is somewhat underwhelming as it’s art we’ve already seen for the 25th Anniversary Book. I’ve translated the track listing below.

A bit of a mixed bag here. I was hoping for a bit more of a variety of tracks that weren’t on the 20th Anniversary Tribute Album. Most of these are songs from the original Sailor Moon anime with only one musical song and two songs from Sailor Moon Crystal. I would have liked to have seen more songs from films, musicals or even the live action series which had not been revisited rather than rehashing the same songs yet again.

As always the album starts out with Moonlight Densetsu or Moonlight Legend, the Sailor Moon opening theme, this time performed by LiSA. This is surely the Sailor Moon song which has been performed by the most artists.

La Soldier, performed by Gesshoku Kaigi, is a song which was used in most of the early Sailor Moon musicals. It was also featured at the end of Sailor Moon R episode 88. Gesshoku Kaigi will also be performing Kaze mo Sora mo Kitto or The Wind, the Sky, Surely, the ending theme for Sailor Stars. They are the only band to perform two songs on this album.

Moon Revenge, performed by BiSH, is the first track that wasn’t on the 20th Anniversary Tribute Album. It was the theme song of Sailor Moon R The Movie which had the five Sailor Guardians each performing in this song. BiSH currently has six members. Perhaps one of them won’t be included in the song or will only sing in the parts where all members are involved. Previously Momoiro Clover Z performed a cover for this song which worked well as that group includes five members.

Otome no Policy or Maiden’s Policy, the Sailor Moon R ending theme, is being performed by Yoko Ishida who originally performed the song for the Sailor Moon anime. This seems an odd choice for a tribute album which is otherwise all covers by new artists. I would expect that this version would be done in some other style especially after we just got a cover of it by Yoko Ishida for the Classic Concert.

Kakumei wa Night & Day or Revolution is Night & Day is perhaps the most obscure inclusion on this album. It was originally included in the fairly unmemorable Sailor Moon Crystal character song CD. It was not, to my knowledge, ever included in the series itself. Character songs have existed for the original anime and the live action series but the more memorable ones of these were featured in those series although many were only included in singles and albums. There are surely many other character songs which could have been used instead of or in addition to this one. The song will be performed by Etsuko Yakushimaru. This is a particularly odd choice as this song, like Moon Revenge, was performed by the five members of the Sailor Team. Since Etsuko Yakushimaru is a single artist I’m not sure why this track was chosen. This, like all other Sailor Moon Crystal tracks, was not included in the 20th Anniversary Tribute Album since Sailor Moon Crystal did not exist at the time.

“Rashiku” Ikimashou or I’ll Go As Myself will be performed by Sonoko Inoue. This was the second Sailor Moon SuperS ending theme which was also used for the end credits of the Ami’s First Love special which played with the Sailor Moon SuperS movie.

The Sailor Stars Song, the second opening theme used for the entire Sailor Stars series, will be performed by Silent Siren.

Eternal Eternity will be performed by Ziyoou-vachi. This was the opening theme for Sailor Moon Crystal Season III.

The post also included a list of vendor exclusive bonuses. These are art by Naoko Takeuchi which was originally included with the manga.

What do you think of the artists chosen for these tracks? Which are you most looking forward to hearing?

Fans waiting for Viz’s next Sailor Moon TV series release will need to be a little more patient. The release had originally been scheduled for April 10th, as we mentioned back in November, however some readers have noticed that pre-orders were being delayed until April 24th. Indeed the listings on Amazon and Right Stuf’s web sites now show an April 24th release date. After some concern in our comments section reader Drew reached out to Viz for clarification and they confirmed that the new release date for Sailor Moon SuperS Part 1 is in fact April 24th. This is only a two week delay but I know some fans have been waiting quite some time for this one!

I’m not aware of any reason given for the delay, though such things are not uncommon. Since there haven’t been any dubbed episodes released to stream yet this will be the first chance we get to hear Viz’s new Sailor Moon SuperS dub. It will also be the first time the Sailor Moon SuperS Special will be available in North America. This shows, amongst other things, what Haruka and Michiru were up to during the Sailor Moon SuperS season. Are you planning on picking up this set? You can pre-order it from Amazon using the link below.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon The Movie Blu-Ray, a set including all three of the Sailor Moon films, was released in Japan on February 7th. This is the first time the Sailor Moon S and SuperS films were released on Blu-Ray and the set looks really great. It also includes the Make-Up! Sailor Senshi and Ami’s First Love specials which played with the R and SuperS movies in theatres as well as a handful of special features. MSRP is 15,000 yen, about $140 US. You can order it from sites such as Amazon Japan or CD Japan. The set is Japanese only with no English subtitles. I believe the discs are region free as no region code is listed on the box but regardless Japanese Blu-Ray discs are region A which is the same region as North America. Fans looking to see the films in English can already buy Sailor Moon R The Movie from Viz which has similar video quality. Though the other films have not been announced they will likely be released eventually.

Japanese Blu-Ray (2018)

Viz Blu-Ray (2017)

A lot of people were wondering what the video quality is like. This release looks fantastic. That said, so did Viz’s Blu-Ray release of the R movie. With such poor quality in Viz’s Blu-Ray releases of the original TV series many blame them for the job they did with it but their Sailor Moon Crystal and R Movie releases show that they are able to make a nice looking product with nice looking masters. These films are HD versions taken from the original film source and it shows. They look considerably superior to the TV series Blu-Rays which have been released in Japan as these were simply software upconverted versions of standard definition video sources.

Japanese Blu-Ray (2018)

Viz Blu-Ray (2017)

Japanese DVD (2002)

English Pioneer DVD (1999)

I’ve got a lot of comparison screenshots between this new Japanese release, Viz’s release of the R movie and the Japanese version. You can also compare it to the original English DVD release but this doesn’t have much value as that was such a poor quality release. Still the English version has an unmated 4:3 picture so there is a bit more of the image to see. For all of the images in this post just click on it to enlarge and then click on the hyperlink showing the image dimensions (for example, 1920×1080) to see the full picture. These suffer from minor compression artifacts because they’re uploaded as JPEGs but you should get an idea for the difference or rather lack of any difference in quality between versions.

Japanese Blu-Ray (2018)

Viz Blu-Ray (2017)

Japanese DVD (2002)

English Pioneer DVD (1999)

These are just a few comparisons. I’ll include more at the end of the post with the rest of the images of the packaging.

Now about the contents. The Sailor Moon films are really a great part of the series. Due to the nature of their release they’re often overlooked. Here in North America for example they were released fairly late with the original dub and with the entire series now released subbed to stream and coming out on home video we only have the first film which has been released theatrically and on video. Though it is often hard to fit the films into continuity, they still generally follow what’s going on with the associated series. Their standalone stories are enjoyable and an easy introduction to the series for new fans.

First is Sailor Moon R The Movie. This is one of my favourite films of all time, let alone one of the better anime films and, in my opinion, the best of the Sailor Moon films. It centres around Fiore, a childhood friend of Mamoru’s who happens to be an alien. It isn’t explicitly mentioned in the film but Fiore is of the same alien race as Ail and An from the early episodes of Sailor Moon R. It’s full of all of what makes Sailor Moon great with emotional scenes, dramatic battles and of course Sailor Moon sacrificing herself and showing compassion for the enemy, which I consider to be her true strength. I’ve spoken at length about my love of this film before! It’s great.

Japanese Blu-Ray (2018)

Viz Blu-Ray (2017)

As a bonus feature with Sailor Moon R The Movie is Make-Up! Sailor Guardians, a short which was originally shown with the film in theatres. I don’t have a great amount of love for this feature since it’s mostly clips, but there is a bit of unique animation. The quality here is not quite that of the film but better than any release of the TV series, of which it features many clips. As I mentioned in my review of Viz’s release of the R movie it seems like the original footage, which is claimed to be lost, was available back when this special was put together because the TV series clips featured throughout are of good quality authored from film source and not converted somehow from a standard definition video source as all Blu-Ray releases of the TV series have been.

Japanese Blu-Ray (2018)

Japanese DVD (2002)

Next we have Sailor Moon S The Movie. This is the only film which is based on the Sailor Moon manga as Naoko Takeuchi wrote a standalone story “The Lover of Princess Kaguya” following her trip to Cape Canaveral in the United States. It is the story of Luna who falls in love with a man and turns into a human herself. Also some ice villain. My feelings are mixed on this one. Simply put I don’t care for it all that much. When I first saw it on bootleg VHS back in the 90s I was fairly underwhelmed. I can never really pinpoint why though. Upon reflection I find the villain uninteresting and having little to tie into the story and I think Kakeru is generally annoying and unintelligent for a scientist. His conflict with Himeko is a bit forced. Still I find the drama around Luna’s feelings compelling and certain aspects of the film are enjoyable, such as Tuxedo Mask dressed as Santa Claus.

Japanese Blu-Ray (2018)

Japanese DVD (2002)

Finally we have Sailor Moon SuperS: The Nine Sailor Guardians Unite! Miracle of the Black Dream Hole. This is the only one of the films with a proper title and it’s a mouthful, hence I often just call it the SuperS Movie or SuperS The Movie, to keep with the convention set by the other films. It introduces us to Perle, or Peruru as I will always think of him due to the subtitles used on VKLL’s version of the film. Perle is a sort of fairy, possibly a bird animated through magic, who is defecting against Badiane, the villain who is possibly an alien who is attempting to enslave the world’s children into an eternal dream like state in which she syphons off their energy. Last year I wrote an article arguing that this film’s plot is similar to that of The Matrix, which was released a few years later. I really enjoy this film. The animation is good and the story interesting. It introduces us to some fun characters and concepts. The main plot is a sort of science fiction story and the idea of enslaving people into a perfect happy dream at the cost of their freedom presents interesting philosophical questions which are fun to think about. Perle’s character somewhat mimics that of Pegasus/Helios as Chibiusa has romantic feelings for him. Having seen this film before watching the later half of the Sailor Moon SuperS season it was this relationship which I was originally exposed to which is a bit backwards to be sure.

Along with the SuperS Movie is Ami’s First Love, a special which was included with the film in theatres. This short is entirely composed of new animation and tells the story of Ami receiving a love letter which she thinks is from a rival student but which turns out to be from a monster. Her “First love” in this case would be Mercurius though she doesn’t really have any direct interaction with this Umino looking guy. This is a funny special and well worth watching. It remains some of the last bits of animation, along with the SuperS Special, that we haven’t seen an official release for here in North America. I expect that if and when Viz gets around to releasing the SuperS film that it will include Ami’s First Love with it. I’m curious to see what rating it gets as it features a semi naked Ami getting out of the tub, but it really isn’t anything too explicit. Quality for this special is quite good and similar to that of the other films. As with the rest of the release the masters used appear to be the film source which means a high quality HD image.

Low quality “clean” opening

As bonus features go we have the same thing which was including in the laserdiscs and I do mean the exact same thing! All special features are standard definition source, converted fairly poorly to HD. This includes three commercials for every film, “clean” (no credits) opening and ending themes and an interview which is included with the R Movie. The commercials aren’t that great. Each has one which was clearly made before any animation on the films was done, in HD, another is a short one with clips and finally there’s a longer commercial with more clips.

Trailer

Completed scene

One interesting aspect of the commercial for Sailor Moon R The Movie is that it includes a clip of Tuxedo Mask when he first appears with a different billboard. In the film itself the billboard is of men in Tuxedos. Tuxedo Mask blends in with the billboard and then we see that he’s actually separate from it and standing on a lamp post. In the commercial there are no men in Tuxedos on the billboard which makes us wonder why he’s even perched so oddly in front of it. Was this unfinished animation where the Tuxedos weren’t filled in? An attempt to keep audiences unspoiled on the nature of this big Tuxedo Mask reveal? Given what I’ve seen from other Japanese film trailers not giving spoilers doesn’t seem to be a huge priority!

An interesting feature with the R Movie is an interview with Kunihiko Ikuhara, director of the film and one of the directors of Sailor Moon for which much of what made the series great is attributed. Unfortunately without subtitles there isn’t much to get out of this interview as is. I recall having seen this subtitled on my VKLL fan sub of the R Movie back in the day but what I never noticed previously was that he’s wearing Mamoru’s green jacket! This is a jacket which he wears consistently throughout the entire Sailor Moon series which makes me wonder if Kunihiko Ikuhara owned this jacket and based Mamoru’s jacket on it, if he went out of his way to get a jacket like Mamoru’s or if this is some sort of coincidence and green jackets are more common than I thought. I can’t take credit for noticing this! I believe it was something I saw on Twitter by Tuxedo Unmasked though I can’t pull up the original reference. As you can see in the caption of the photo on this blog post, he made a comment about the jacket at least as early as June 2017!

An interesting thing I noticed while looking at the laserdiscs for the films is that the track listings are actually identical. The track numbers for each scene is the same on the old laserdiscs and the Blu-Ray. Similarly we can see from these comparisons that the special features are the same, just not always in the exact same order. The DVD release also had a lot of these special features included but the Kunihiko Ikuhara interview was previously only on the laserdisc release.

The set also includes a cool booklet which is full of images and character art of all of the films. This is similar to the booklets which have been released with the Blu-Ray releases of the TV series. I’ve included photos of all pages of this booklet later in the post. While this is a nice thing to include I think the theatrical programs included with the DVD set were much better.

Finally let’s talk about the box art. With three movies there was no single image to use on the cover which covers all three and so for whatever reason the S Movie poster gets the cover. Inside we have the R Movie as the front and SuperS Movie as the back. I’m including photos of the laserdiscs for comparison but this is not the source of this artwork. The images used are the original theatrical posters for the films. I only have a poster for the R Movie myself! This art is also found on the insert for a U2 CD!

All in all this is a great release. Do I recommend it? Well it’s in Japanese and has no English so as always that’s of limited value given the price point. These are films I’ve seen a couple of dozen times each so I don’t find it terribly hard to follow along. That said there will probably be releases of these films by Viz at some point. This may be in a few years so the set is still worth getting if you would expect to watch it a few times before that happens.

Keep reading for more pictures of this release including photos of the box art, screenshot comparisons between releases and photos of all pages of the included special booklet.

Naoko Takeuchi is the creator of Sailor Moon and author of the Sailor Moon manga and today, March 15th, is her birthday! Last year many fans wished her a happy 50th birthday, as I did in a Tweet which went viral after being retweeted by Brianna Wu. Shortly afterwards however a few things made me wonder if it really had been her 50th birthday or that it was perhaps her 51st.

Last year a message by Naoko Takeuchi was read at a 25th anniversary event and posted to the official site which I covered previously. She mentions that on the date of the Sailor Moon manga’s first publication, specified in the letter as being July 6th 1992, she was 26 years old. Since July 6th is after March 15th this would indicate that, had Naoko Takeuchi really celebrated her 26th birthday on March 15th 1992, her date of birth would be March 15th 1966. When I saw this I started to wonder if I was wrong about what I assume was her year of birth. Wikipedia, and many other reputablesources, currently list her year of birth as 1967, which would make her 51 years old today.

The Wikipedia talk page shows that there is some disagreement over this date. I think Wikipedia is a reliable source of information but when something appears to be in doubt, I always recommend checking out the talk page to see what open discussions people are having about an issue. This mentions that some Japanese pages list her year of birth as 1966. That said the Japanese Wikipedia page and other Japanese sites currently list her year of birth as 1967. Due to her private nature her age was never listed on the official site, only the day of her birth without the year.

The source for the 1967 number appears to have been Hitoshi Doi’s Sailor Moon page. Fans who scoured the Internet in the late 90s will recall this as being a great English language resource by a Japanese Sailor Moon fan. The other source listed is an interview in Punch!! where Naoko mentions that in 1997, when the final episode of Sailor Moon aired, February 8th 1997, that she was happy to get a 5 month vacation at age 30. If Naoko was 30 in February 1997 that would mean that her 31st birthday was on March 15th 1997, making her year of birth 1966. However since there is a 5 month “vacation” mentioned she could simply be saying that she was 30 later in that vacation, making her 30th birthday on March 15th 1997, which would give her a year of birth of 1967.

With most signs currently pointing to a 1967 year of birth the statement on that letter stating she was 26 when Sailor Moon began doesn’t add up. This could be an indication that most online sources, all derived from the same place or the result of some assumptions about the Punch!! interview, are incorrect or simply that she misremembered or mistakenly mentioned being 26 at the time the series began. She could simply have recalled being that age when she began working on Sailor Moon earlier that year or simplified the math estimating her age at the beginning of 1992 rather than the later part of it.

So what’s the truth? I couldn’t say for sure. With so many sources repeating the 1967 number that seems the likely correct value but there is enough doubt placed on it for me to think there’s a legitimate possibility that she’s actually born in 1966. I’m putting all of the information out there so you can decide for yourself. This isn’t important like, say, when we’ll get more Sailor Moon Crystal.

This brings up the other issue. Does it really matter? Not really. It is Naoko Takeuchi’s birthday. She’s in her early 50s and was in her mid to late 20s when she wrote Sailor Moon. Her family may care about what kind of joke card to get her or how many candles to put on her cake but her exact age doesn’t make a big difference in the lives of fans. I’m just stubbornly interested in discovering the truth about the world so when I see something that doesn’t add up I must strive to know what the right answer is. If you’ve got any thoughts or insight into this feel free to mention it in the comments.